In the context of the Anti-Corruption and Asset Recovery Support of Ukraine programme funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) training team recently delivered a Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery training workshop for 25 Ukrainian practitioners.

Professionals in anti-corruption, asset recovery, business integrity, governance and related topics need a range of advanced competencies – to master the intricacies of financial investigations, for example, or hone analytical and research capabilities.

At the Basel Institute, we know that much valuable expertise is gained “on the job” through training, mentoring and hands-on experience. Our existing learning opportunities meet these needs and empower communities of international professionals.

The illegal wildlife trade is operating at an industrial scale. It has a direct impact on the accelerating rate of biodiversity loss and deprives local communities of sustainable livelihoods.

The Basel Institute’s International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) has marked the beginning of a new “train-the-trainer” programme in Zambia with a successful course on financial investigations and asset recovery.

The train-the-trainer programme aims to increase local training capacity by equipping five local anti-corruption professionals with the skills to become qualified ICAR trainers over the course of five workshops, while simultaneously training up to 125 other participants.

The Basel Institute's technical assistance to the Prosecutor General’s Office in Mozambique will now continue through 2027, thanks to a second-phase agreement with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Mozambique office.

Since 2018, our locally based team has been helping to build the capacity of the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate and prosecute corruption and related financial crimes, as well as to recover stolen assets. Training support was extended to the country’s Criminal Police in 2022. 

Corruption and fraud risks in public procurement are a concern all over the world – including Bulgaria, where scandals around infrastructure and procurement projects damage trust in government, drain the public budget and may also affect EU development funds.

At the Basel Institute we connect our IT, eLearning and training activities closely. The result is more effective and efficient capacity building that takes advantage of technological advances while keeping trainees’ learning experience at the centre.

Better management of public infrastructure projects could save significant amounts of taxpayers’ money and result in better buildings, roads and bridges. But the public officials managing the projects are often unaware of academic frameworks and tools that could help them to manage the investments more efficiently and transparently.

A new academic course developed by our Subnational Public Finance Management Strengthening Programme (Programa GFP) and the University of Piura seeks to address that issue for public officials in Peru.

Mozambique faces critical infrastructure challenges – and opportunities – across all areas of its economy.

Yet the type of high-value procurement and infrastructure projects needed to boost development in the country are well known to be vulnerable to corruption. Risk factors include the high complexity, large transactions and multi-party negotiations that require close cooperation between the public and private sectors.

Shell companies, trusts and other corporate structures allow criminals to hide their illicit money abroad, often in offshore financial centres with poor beneficial ownership transparency. Officers seeking to investigate and prosecute transnational corruption cases need to understand these structures and how to cooperate with foreign jurisdictions.